STEVEN SPEAR
Operational Excellence and Innovation Expert. Steven J. Spear is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and in MIT’s Engineering Systems Division, His book, The High Velocity Edge, has won numerous awards including the Philip Crosby Medal from the American Society for Quality (ASQ) in 2011.
MEET STEVEN SPEARS
Steven Spear is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and at the Engineering Systems Division at MIT.
Spear is an internationally-recognized expert about leadership, innovation, and operational excellence, and he is an authority on how select companies—in high tech and heavy industry, design and production, manufacturing and services—generate unmatchable performance by converting improvement and innovation from the rare kiss of inspiration to repeatable, broad-based, skill-based disciplines.
Expert on the ways that “high-velocity organizations” generate and sustain advantage, even in the most hyper-competitive markets, Spear has worked with clients spanning technology and heavy industry, software and healthcare, and new production design and manufacturing.
Spear’s research has been exceptionally well acknowledged with five Shingo Prizes and a McKinsey award from Harvard Business Review. Spear’s “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System” and “Learning to Lead at Toyota,” are part of the lean manufacturing canon. His “Fixing Healthcare from the Inside, Today” and articles in Annals of Internal Medicine and Academic Medicine have been on the forefront in health care improvement. He has contributed to the Boston Globe and New York Times, has appeared on Bloomberg TV and radio, CBS, and elsewhere.
Spear is a well-recognized expert on how select organizations manage complex development, design, and delivery efforts to create unmatched rates of internally generated, broad-based improvement and innovation. His work investigates how the resulting leadership on reliability, agility, cost, quality, and safety produces sustainable competitive advantage even in the face of intense rivalry. Prior to MIT Sloan, he worked for the investment bank Prudential-Bache, the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, and the University of Tokyo, and he taught at Harvard Business School for six years.
As a consultant and an advisor, Spear works actively with organizations to develop their capacity for high-speed, sustained improvement and innovation. He played an integral role in developing the Alcoa Business System, which has been credited with saving hundreds of millions of dollars in Alcoa’s annual report, and the Perfecting Patient Care system of the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative, which helped raise quality and safety of care in area hospitals and which has been credited with saving many lives and much money. His clients include organizations such as Lockheed Martin, John Deere, Intel, Intuit, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He consulted for the MacArthur Foundation and works with Toyota on supplier development efforts. A senior lecturer at MIT Sloan and at the Engineering Systems Division, Spear teaches a course on high-velocity organizations in the Leaders for Global Operations Program and in several executive education programs. He supports the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s efforts as a Senior Fellow.
Spear’s book, The High Velocity Edge: How Market Leaders Leverage Operational Excellence to Beat the Competition (McGraw Hill, 2010), has won several awards, including the Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing Research and the Philip Crosby Medal from the American Society for Quality. His articles, “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System” and “Learning to Lead at Toyota” have been widely read and have become part of the lean manufacturing canon. “Fixing Healthcare from the Inside, Today” won a McKinsey Award as one of the best Harvard Business Review articles in 2005 and his fourth Shingo Prize for Research Excellence. Spear has published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and other medical journals as well, and has had op-ed pieces in The New York Times, the Boston Globe, Fortune.com, and Industry Week. He has been interviewed on Bloomberg TV and radio and on CBS News, has been quoted in a number of magazines and newspapers, and has spoken to audiences as diverse as the Association for Manufacturing Excellence and the Institute of Medicine.
Spear holds a BS in economics from Princeton University, an MA in management and an MS in mechanical engineering from MIT, and a PhD from Harvard Business School.
Spear is an internationally-recognized expert about leadership, innovation, and operational excellence, and he is an authority on how select companies—in high tech and heavy industry, design and production, manufacturing and services—generate unmatchable performance by converting improvement and innovation from the rare kiss of inspiration to repeatable, broad-based, skill-based disciplines.
Expert on the ways that “high-velocity organizations” generate and sustain advantage, even in the most hyper-competitive markets, Spear has worked with clients spanning technology and heavy industry, software and healthcare, and new production design and manufacturing.
Spear’s research has been exceptionally well acknowledged with five Shingo Prizes and a McKinsey award from Harvard Business Review. Spear’s “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System” and “Learning to Lead at Toyota,” are part of the lean manufacturing canon. His “Fixing Healthcare from the Inside, Today” and articles in Annals of Internal Medicine and Academic Medicine have been on the forefront in health care improvement. He has contributed to the Boston Globe and New York Times, has appeared on Bloomberg TV and radio, CBS, and elsewhere.
Spear is a well-recognized expert on how select organizations manage complex development, design, and delivery efforts to create unmatched rates of internally generated, broad-based improvement and innovation. His work investigates how the resulting leadership on reliability, agility, cost, quality, and safety produces sustainable competitive advantage even in the face of intense rivalry. Prior to MIT Sloan, he worked for the investment bank Prudential-Bache, the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, and the University of Tokyo, and he taught at Harvard Business School for six years.
As a consultant and an advisor, Spear works actively with organizations to develop their capacity for high-speed, sustained improvement and innovation. He played an integral role in developing the Alcoa Business System, which has been credited with saving hundreds of millions of dollars in Alcoa’s annual report, and the Perfecting Patient Care system of the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative, which helped raise quality and safety of care in area hospitals and which has been credited with saving many lives and much money. His clients include organizations such as Lockheed Martin, John Deere, Intel, Intuit, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He consulted for the MacArthur Foundation and works with Toyota on supplier development efforts. A senior lecturer at MIT Sloan and at the Engineering Systems Division, Spear teaches a course on high-velocity organizations in the Leaders for Global Operations Program and in several executive education programs. He supports the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s efforts as a Senior Fellow.
Spear’s book, The High Velocity Edge: How Market Leaders Leverage Operational Excellence to Beat the Competition (McGraw Hill, 2010), has won several awards, including the Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing Research and the Philip Crosby Medal from the American Society for Quality. His articles, “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System” and “Learning to Lead at Toyota” have been widely read and have become part of the lean manufacturing canon. “Fixing Healthcare from the Inside, Today” won a McKinsey Award as one of the best Harvard Business Review articles in 2005 and his fourth Shingo Prize for Research Excellence. Spear has published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and other medical journals as well, and has had op-ed pieces in The New York Times, the Boston Globe, Fortune.com, and Industry Week. He has been interviewed on Bloomberg TV and radio and on CBS News, has been quoted in a number of magazines and newspapers, and has spoken to audiences as diverse as the Association for Manufacturing Excellence and the Institute of Medicine.
Spear holds a BS in economics from Princeton University, an MA in management and an MS in mechanical engineering from MIT, and a PhD from Harvard Business School.
SUGGESTED SPEAKING TOPICS
Chasing the Rabbit: How Market Leaders Outdistance The Competition
Across a broad variety of hyper competitive sectors, a few organizations simply outrun their competition. Though competing in the same markets for the same customers, offering similar products and services, reliant on the same suppliers, and subject to the same rules and regulations, they nevertheless generate more value (from the customers' perspective), in less time, with less effort, at less cost. The result is growing market share and higher margins. The resulting success pays dividends to all concerned: customers, suppliers, employees, and shareholders.
The secret to the success of these leaders is that when they face the common challenges of identifying market needs, generating product and service designs to meet those needs, and generating those offerings, they attack all the attendant uncertainty that is involved with innovation that is so organically institutionalized in their organizations that no one can match its speed, endurance, or breadth.
Fortunately, applying institutionalized innovation across the board is not merely the realm of a few idiosyncratic inspired geniuses. Rather, it depends on core capabilities that can be taught, cultivated, practiced, and applied effectively. The workshop will:
Health Care
Key Points:
Manufacturing and Industry
Key Points:
Across a broad variety of hyper competitive sectors, a few organizations simply outrun their competition. Though competing in the same markets for the same customers, offering similar products and services, reliant on the same suppliers, and subject to the same rules and regulations, they nevertheless generate more value (from the customers' perspective), in less time, with less effort, at less cost. The result is growing market share and higher margins. The resulting success pays dividends to all concerned: customers, suppliers, employees, and shareholders.
The secret to the success of these leaders is that when they face the common challenges of identifying market needs, generating product and service designs to meet those needs, and generating those offerings, they attack all the attendant uncertainty that is involved with innovation that is so organically institutionalized in their organizations that no one can match its speed, endurance, or breadth.
Fortunately, applying institutionalized innovation across the board is not merely the realm of a few idiosyncratic inspired geniuses. Rather, it depends on core capabilities that can be taught, cultivated, practiced, and applied effectively. The workshop will:
- Introduce the capabilities that characterize the highest velocity, most innovative organizations
- Explore how they apply in your particular work
- Identify what leaders need to do to cultivate and engage the capabilities
- Develop an action plan for initial 'test of concept.'
Health Care
Key Points:
- Patient Safety
- Quality of Care
- Better Care for More People at Less Cost
- Improving Health Care Delivery
Manufacturing and Industry
Key Points:
- Lean Manufacturing
- Productivity and Efficiency
- Competitiveness
- Organizational Learning
- Operational Excellence
- Leadership
- High Velocity Organizations
- Competing in Difficult Economic Times
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The High-Velocity Edge: How Market Leaders Leverage Operational Excellence to Beat the Competition
title How can some companies perform so well that their industry counterparts are competitors in name only? Although they operate in the same industry, serve the same market, and even use the same suppliers, these extraordinary, high-velocity organizations consistently outperform all the competition—and, more importantly, continually widen their leads.In The High-Velocity Edge, the reissued edition of five-time Shingo Prize winner Steven J. Spear’s critically acclaimed book Chasing the Rabbit, Spear describes what sets market-dominating companies apart and provides a detailed framework you can leverage to surge to the lead in your own industry. Spear examines the internal operations of dominant organizations across a wide spectrum of industries, from technology to design and from manufacturing to healthcare. While he investigates several great operational triumphs, like top-tier teaching hospitals’ fantastic improvements in quality of care, Pratt & Whitney’s competitive gains in jet engine design, and the U.S. Navy’s breakthroughs in inventing and applying nuclear propulsion, The High-Velocity Edge is not just about the adoration of success. It also takes a critical look at some of the operational missteps that have humbled even the most reputable and respected of companies and organizations. The decades-long prominence of Toyota, for example, is contrasted with the many factors leading to the automaker’s sweeping 2010 product recalls. Taken together, these multiple perspectives and in-depth case studies show how to: Whatever kind of company you operate— from technology to fi nance to healthcare— mastery of these four key capabilities will put you on the fast track to operational excellence, where you will generate faster, better results—using less capital and fewer resources. Apply the lessons of Steven J. Spear and gain a high-velocity edge over every competitor in your industry.
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Partial Client List:
Association for Manufacturing Excellence
Institute of Medicine (part of the National Academies)
Institute for Healthcare Improvement
American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons
Shingo Prize Annual Conference
Association for Manufacturing Excellence
Institute of Medicine (part of the National Academies)
Institute for Healthcare Improvement
American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons
Shingo Prize Annual Conference
